Jovocop wrote:Would Schroeder + a second round pick be enough to get Berglund?

I would say no. He's better than .5 ppg and still really young. He's also huge in comparison to JS.

As tantalum mentioned earlier, the Blues still need to sign Stewart and Pietrangelo. They still have a big lineup without Berglund. Schroeder is cheap and reliable. He should be able to provide some cap relief for the Blues as well as producing offense. MG could sweeten the pot a bit by throwing in a prospect.

tantalum wrote:Berglund is making over $3 mil this season. RFA next. Still young but he has underperformed the last couple of years.

Not sure the canucks can fit him in, but certainly wouldn't be a bad addition if they could. A young, big center.

Blues have run into the problem that they didn't do enough when the guys they had were on sweetheart deals. now all that youthful, underpaid core is getting paid and when you couple it with the Bouwmeester cap hit it has caused them issues.

This trade makes them immune to a Pietrangelo offer sheet. Either they don't sign Stewart and trade his rights or they move Berglund. Just my opinion.

As you said earlier, there's almost no way the Blues are a cap team either. My guess is their internal budget is south of $60 million so they'll have to do some thing to get to it.

Berglund is still young enough to improve, and you could sign him to a long-term extension for not too much dough right now. If Gillis is willing to move Tanev he can fit a guy like Berglund or another $3 million player in quite easily. As is, with Tanev signed, a $2 to $2.5 million player is easily accommodated.

I still don't think Gillis is done, there's nowhere near enough depth on the bottom 2 lines. He'll pick up a player or two before the season starts.

If he was a top level goaltender it wouldn't be an issue but his reputation as a playoff dud obviously isn't being overlooked by the rest of the league.

We are risking turning every thread into a Luongo thread.

The "concern" with Luongo's contract has always been with its length. I do not buy into GM's submarining Luongo because he has let in a couple softies and the team collapses (Luongo has never let in 8 bad goals in a game. Vancouver quits under AV and everyone knows it). They are smarter than most of the fishbowl fans here, we just get the advantage of having nothing at stake in our predictions, perfect hindsight, and hiding behind our internet warrior computer screen shields.

How can people firmly believe in playoffs as a definitive and substantial contract "measuring stick" with people like Bouwmeester, Kovalchuk, Stamkos, Nash, and Gaborik signing monsterous contracts and almost never seeing a playoff game is their careers?

In 2 years when the salary cap is astronomically high Luongo will be a total bargain once again, even if he's a completely average goaltender in every respect (which he will not be). Everyone will be so happy they signed him 'back then' when the Devan Dubnyk's of the league will be signing for 6.5+.

You know it's funny but going into the Stanley Cup Final Thomas and Luongo literally had identical stats (same GAA, SV% that differed by 0.003 or something). Luongo had a partially terrible cup final though he also had 3 excellent games. It was similar to Thomas' eastern final. He was and Boston was terrible for 3 or 4 games in that series yet he grabbed a couple of shutouts. The refs put away the whistles in game 7 of the eastern final and neutered the bolts. Had they not done so perhaps we're talking about how terrible a playoff goaltender Thomas is. This year Rask and Crawford went in with identical stats....crawford maintained his numbers through the final and Rask's took a nosedive.

Because Luongo didn't win the cup we hear about how terrible he is in the playoffs anytime he loses or a bad goal goes in. And the lack of winning it all is certainly relevant. However, all goaltenders have terrible playoff years or series. Even the best of the best. Brodeur has been a started for 16 playoff years...in 5 of those years he had a SV% 0.902 or lower. His other years he is 0.917 or higher. He has won the cup though so we gloss over the fact that at times he really has been bad during the playoffs. You can look and see that for a handful of year Roy also struggled.

Again I understand the perception but in the end, Luongo has the highest regular season SV% of any goaltender not named Hasek who has played 700 or more games in the history of the league (and Hasek is ahead by a mere 0.003). When he retires he will likely be top 5 all time in regular season wins. He will also likely be top 10 in playoff wins and playoff shutouts...despite spending the first half of his career thus far in Islander and Panther purgatory. He has an excellent international resume.

He's a good goaltender. He has some quirks to be sure. There are concerns. I to had hoped that it would be Schneider suiting up for the canucks in the next 5 or 6 years. But how can people not be concerned about Schneider who has a grand total of 1 playoff win and has actually yet to see a truly high pressure game since playing in the world juniors? Schneider is a great talent but he is far from proven (I know some will argue about that but starting 30 games for a couple of seasons doesn't prove much of anything when it comes to goaltending. Heck, Jim Carey showed the world that a Vezina doesn't prove anything either!)

Do you deny the fact that he's a huge question mark in any series? Do you really feel confident in his abilities to carry a team, even when they aren't necessarily the best team on the ice? This is what a true superstar goalie should be capable of. Hell, Luongo was that goalie. Somewhere along the way(Chicago probably) his confidence was eroded. Somehow he fell from a top tender to a mentally fragile one.

My point is that it is in dispute for nearly EVERY goaltender that has EVER played the game. There is a reason it can be the most important position on the team. So yes there is always that doubt and always will be. But don't you think Chicago fans have that same doubt with Crawford? And they will continue to do so despite his fantastic numbers this spring. Up until the cup finals it was very much in debate if Thomas could be that guy. Heck the next season he started off with 3 bad games in the eventual series loss to the Caps. Is Quick a flash in the pan because he had a terrible regular season and series against Chicago?

On any given day and any given series a goaltender can struggle. Rarely are they completely stellar all the way through a playoff run...they will all typically have 5 or 6 poor to very poor games. The fact that Luongo's numbers are excellent despite the handful of meltdowns (and it is only a handful through 60+ playoff games), means his playoff goaltending is quite simply fine.

And really these same things already exist for Schneider. And once again i would have liked to see Schneider stay for hockey reasons but superb, mentally tough goaltender is not one of them. because we don't know if he is.

Do you deny the fact that he's a huge question mark in any series? Do you really feel confident in his abilities to carry a team, even when they aren't necessarily the best team on the ice? This is what a true superstar goalie should be capable of. Hell, Luongo was that goalie. Somewhere along the way(Chicago probably) his confidence was eroded. Somehow he fell from a top tender to a mentally fragile one.

Is this even in dispute any more?

He's a question mark in any game. Not a series. Expect him to have 2 meltdowns in the playoffs. Pray they aren't in an elimination game. I don't consider game 7 against Boston to be a meltdown. The first goal was utterly bad. The team sold him out after that. One goal is not a meltdown. Meltdowns are what we saw in Boston and Chicago.

I don't think there has been a Canuck goaltender since McLean who didn't have me nervous in the playoffs.....it's not always the goaltenders, it's the damned puck luck of the Canucks. Look how many pucks got by Luongo against Nashville that went in off of a defender or bounced in off of him from behind the goalline even though he was playing it perfectly. Canuck-luck is a bitch.

tantalum wrote:My point is that it is in dispute for nearly EVERY goaltender that has EVER played the game. There is a reason it can be the most important position on the team. So yes there is always that doubt and always will be. But don't you think Chicago fans have that same doubt with Crawford? And they will continue to do so despite his fantastic numbers this spring. Up until the cup finals it was very much in debate if Thomas could be that guy. Heck the next season he started off with 3 bad games in the eventual series loss to the Caps. Is Quick a flash in the pan because he had a terrible regular season and series against Chicago?

On any given day and any given series a goaltender can struggle. Rarely are they completely stellar all the way through a playoff run...they will all typically have 5 or 6 poor to very poor games. The fact that Luongo's numbers are excellent despite the handful of meltdowns (and it is only a handful through 60+ playoff games), means his playoff goaltending is quite simply fine.

And really these same things already exist for Schneider. And once again i would have liked to see Schneider stay for hockey reasons but superb, mentally tough goaltender is not one of them. because we don't know if he is.

+1

Not meaning to pile on here UDL, but it really isn't Luongo that causes me anxiety, rather the rest of the team. If you are looking for mentally fragile go back a few years to the days of Cloutier. Luongo might have a bad game or two here and there but overall he is a great tender and one of the best all time for the Canucks. His overall performance in the playoffs has been solid, with, admittedly, some hiccups here and there. But as Tant noted, such are to be expected of pretty much any tender, even the great ones. It's pretty obvious how this town got the label of a goalie graveyard as quick as we are to blame the goalie for the team's inadequacies. Personally, I don't see it and we will need to have a damn sight better team for him to be my primary worry in the playoffs or any other time.

With respect to RFAs, would love to see the team send out an offer sheet on Stewart, but doubt we have the cap space to actually make an offer the Blues won't match.

Last edited by DonCherry4PM on Thu Jul 11, 2013 12:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.